I found this column from the St. Charles Journal amusing. The author republishes an advertisement for a squirrel removal service, replacing the word “squirrel” with “teen”.
It took me back to Evelyn Waugh’s wonderful novel Scoop. In it, a provincial writer named William Boot writes a nature column called Lush Places for the Beast (a London newspaper). William writes “a lyrical, but wholly accurate account of the habits of the badger…” Subsequently, his sister Priscilla:
…in a playful mood had found the manuscript and altered it, substituting for “badger” throughout “the great crested grebe.” It was not until Saturday morning when, in this form, it appeared in the Beast that William was aware of the outrage.
His mail had been prodigious; some correspondents were sceptical, others derisive; one lady wrote to ask whether she read him aright in thinking he condoned the practice of baiting these rare and beautiful birds with terriers and deliberately destroying their earthly homes; how could this be tolerated in the so-called twentieth century? A major in Wales challenged him categorically to produce a single authenticated case of a great crested grebe attacking young rabbits.
